Lorenzo Vigas' 'From Afar' Wins Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival

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Director Lorenzo Vigas on stage with the Golden Lion Award for Best Film for 'From Afar' at the closing ceremony during the 72nd Venice Film Festival on September 12, 2015 in Venice, Italy.

Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas' Caracas-set drama "From Afar" won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion prize for best picture on Saturday, as filmmakers from the Americas beat established European directors to the main trophies.

The festival's Grand Jury Prize, considered the runner-up trophy, went to an American film, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's inventive, animated "Anomalisa." And Pablo Trapero's "El Clan" ("The Clan"), an Argentine true-crime thriller that has broken box-office records in its homeland, took the Silver Lion for best direction.

"From Afar" — "Desde Alla" in Spanish — charts the unexpected relationship between a middle-aged, middle-class man and a street youth. Vigas dedicated his prize to his country, which has experienced severe political and economic instability.

"We are having some problems, but we are very positive," he said. "We are an amazing nation."

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A jury led by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron chose winners from among 21 movies competing at the 72nd annual festival — an edition where war, crime and other woes of the world dominated onscreen.

Audiences saw African child soldiers drafted into a brutal civil war in Cary Fukunaga's "Beasts of No Nation;" Afghan civilians caught between the Taliban and Danish troops in Tobias Lindholm's "A War;" and Turkish brothers trapped in escalating political violence in Emin Alper's "Frenzy."

Director Jonathan Demme, jury president for the festival's Horizons competition for emerging talents, said many of the films gave "horrifying glimpses of how hard it is to stay alive in the world today."

Italy's Valeria Golino took the best-actress trophy for playing a put-upon Neapolitan woman in Giuseppe Gaudino's experimental family drama "For Your Love." She took the same prize in 1986 for "A Tale of Love."

France's Fabrice Luchini was named best actor for his role as a judge trying to rekindle romance while presiding over a murder trial in Christian Vincent's "L'Hermine" ("Courted").

The jury also gave a prize for the best young actor to Abraham Attah, the 14-year-old Ghanaian star of "Beasts of No Nation."

Brady Corbet, a 27-year-old American actor-director, won the first-feature prize for "The Childhood of a Leader," an ambitious exploration of the roots of dictatorship that features Robert Pattinson.

An emotional Corbet offered the advice: "Be patient, be radical, be free."

The world's oldest film festival wrapped up Saturday after 11 days that brought stars including Jake Gyllenhaal, Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton and Johnny Depp to the canal-crossed Italian city for water-borne photo ops and red carpet premieres.